


A Life Saved; A Path Paved

by ReticentResolve



Category: Ghost of Tsushima (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends, Falling In Love, Graphic Violence, Hiding in Plain Sight, Injury Recovery, Internalized Homophobia, Language Barrier, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moral Dilemmas, Moral Lessons, Serious Injuries, Strangers to Lovers, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26282530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReticentResolve/pseuds/ReticentResolve
Summary: The story of two Mongolian soldiers who survive an encounter with The Ghost.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

A rich laugh broke through the serene forest, as the patrol marched forward through the heavily tread path. Five Mongolian soldiers walked tall and constant, two archers, a spearman and two swordsmen. Weapons at the ready and very full of mirth for their grim task ahead. 

And it were not like most of them had much of an issue with what they were doing. They were warriors, here to conquer in the name of their country. The lives taken meant nothing to them. The Samurai were dying the way they preached about, and the villagers meant very little in the end, as this land was to be colonized. They only understood bits and pieces of what they said. It made them seem less human.

"Hey!" The swordsman in the back shouts. "I've gotta take a piss, hold up a minute, would you?"

The other swordsman, his brother, scoffed and crossed his arms. "Just hurry up, will you?"

The first waved him off, and left the path to stand in front of a tree slowly shedding green leaves. Each of the others looked about, some going to pick through their bags for any spare rations. The second swordsman took out a small, worn down whetstone. 

Then, a soft sound broke the rustle of the leaves, and the men glanced up from their distractions. Not fast enough, it would seem, as the spearman was met with a katana through his chest, splattering blood across the two archers behind him. 

The second swordsman was the first to respond, rushing towards the masked samurai with a loud warcry as the archers cock their arrows. He too, met his fate quickly. One cut blocked, only managing to cut into the samurai's hand right above where his vambrace ended, and the second being met with a hard parry that sent his sword careening out of his hand. 

The archers fire, but the man ducks. 

The second swordsman falls as fast as lightning, eyes wide and only half understanding as he falls to the ground with a gurgle. A canyon of a wound stretching from his right shoulder to his left hip. So deep no one would have been surprised if his arm completely separated from what little held it. 

He turns to them, and catches the one archer's eyes dead on. For a second, they stare at each other, until the other archer shouts for him to get down, and fires. As the samurai dashes to the firing archer, the other looks around frantically before coming to a decision. 

This was his only time to get away, or he was going to die. 

So he turns tail and makes a mad dash through the trees, dropping his weapons as he goes.

* * *

Shaking his arms off a bit, Jin turns to where he knew the last Mongolian was, only to be met with an empty path, and the slightest bit of the man visible from where he was running through the trees. With a sigh, he accepts that he would not be able to catch him as it were, and wipes the blood off of his sword. 

The man had dropped his arrows, though. And Jin was more than happy to take them off of the ground. The less weapons the Mongolians had access to, the better. 

Tucking them into his quiver, he whistles for Nobu to come.

As the horse galloped to him, one of the Mongolians shoves himself out of the way, leaving a trail of blood almost as thick as his body behind him. Jin places a firm hand on his sword, and walks over. The Mongolian turns his head to watch Jin approach him, eyes hazy, so covered in blood and dust from the road Jin could hardly tell they were brown. 

With great effort, he lifted his uninjured arm from beneath him in a futile attempt to stop Jin. 

"Z-zogs." He croaks out. Closing his eyes and furrowing his brow deep and repeating himself as though that would make it more meaningful. "Zogs, zogs, zogs, zogs, zogs-"

Jin draws his blade, positions it above the man.

"Stop!" He says, in clunky and mispronounced Japanese.   
Jin pauses, just for a moment. "Why?"

But the man's knowledge of Japanese seemed to end there, as he just lets out a shaky breath and almost crumples in on himself. 

Despite his vast experience in ending lives, Jin did not like to be this near to it. And he definately didn't like to kill a begging man. The fact that he was a Mongolian soldier, who no doubt deserved this death weighed heavily in his mind, but still Jin sheathed his sword. "You're lucky I don't feel like dirtying my sword again."

He turned and walked away. If the man wanted to give up a warrior's death to die like an animal in the forest, let him.

* * *

The man's eyes drifted dangerously close to closed for the next few minutes, until he heard the samurai leave on his horse. Only then did he slowly raise his head to look around him. At the dead body of his brother and fellow soldiers. 

He panted hard and heavy, making a great effort to pitch his good arm beneath him and drag himself forward, off the path. 

The first effort drew forth a thunderous scream from his lungs, and hardly got him two feet further to where he abruptly decided his target was. A large tree with a small concave where he suddenly saw himself taking his last few breaths in his mind's eye. 

The realization had him huffing, a small few tears running down his face. 

He was never going to see his family again. He had a mother, he had just sent a proposal to a young woman, hoping that his achievements in war would win him her hand upon his return. He'd never return on the ships he rode in on. 

And here he was, wallowing in the shame of his tears and dragging himself forward, foot by torturous foot so low his head drug through the grass. It was only upon leaning against the tree that he spoke. Voice cracked and hardly audible even to himself.

"I don't want to die..."


	2. Chapter 2

Qorchi's flight ended just as abruptly as it had began, with him realizing his legs could hardly carry him forward. Hhe had circled back around halfway through his hour long flight. Tried to make his tracks as baffling as possible, weaving through trees and creeks as frequently as he could. All out of the suffocating fear that he was going to turn around and be run through with a blade. 

Resting his head against the tree he leaned on, he sighed long and low. He was a filthy traitor. Had left his fellows to be viciously ended by that demon of a man. Went against everything he had been taught since his first days in training. He glanced down to his belt, where his skinning knife was sheathed against his thigh. 

It was one of the most enforced rules of the Yassa, do not betray. If he returned, surely he would be questioned thoroughly and have to lead them to the sight of the crime. They would know, and he would be put to death. He was a fool. When had running ever even become an option to him?

But... he had already destroyed his reputation at this point, for another chance of life. Would they assume he had been taken in by the Japanese? Or would they find the footsteps he had left from his fleeing?

Either way, he knew he would not give up now. He had lost too much to just plunge a blade into his sternum and be done with it. He was going to be known as a coward no matter what he did from now on, but maybe he wouldn't have to die.

He stood up, still panting lightly and looking about at the land stretching around him, painted a bright red by the setting sun. He had wound up on almost the top of a slope and was able to see for many kilometers around him. He could see the path they had been walking along while they had been attacked, still. And for that, he was thankful. He had to return, he had left his bow behind, and if he wanted to have any chance of life, he would need something more than his skinning knife.

With a shaky, deep breath, he begins back down the slope. Trying to keep up a light jog, but often faltering as his tired legs almost slipped on the hill. 

He could not shake the fear in the back of his mind, that the samurai would still be there, that he had been following him the entire time, and Qorchi's pausing for the time that he had allowed him to catch up. But he was being foolish, and he knew that. The samurai was the one everyone was talking about. Fought like a pack of wolves and approached much more silently. He seemed to be everywhere all at once, he surely had left by now. Off to attack another Mongol camp.

But still he could not stop glancing over his shoulder, eyes scanning the horizon as the sun slowly set. His surroundings very quickly darkened around him, and by the time he had made it back to the path, he was only lit by the moon and stars.

Despite his earlier musings, he still hid behind a tree, looking all around him. From the cold corpses of his prior comrades, to the long meadow covered in white flowers in front of him. No movement caught his eyes, and upon the road sat his bow, covered in dirt but looking none the worse for wear. His arrows, however were nowhere to be seen. 

Slowly he walked out from his cover to snatch up his weapon from the ground. A thought crossed his mind briefly, and he took the spear off of the ground to the right of him, as well as picking out the three arrows that had been shot into the ground. The tip had broken off of one, but he was confident he could replace it. Walking over to the spearman's corpse, who's name he had never learned, he took the belt off of his torse. It had, as with all of them, a loop on the back to hold a spear when not in battle. 

Then, movement caught his eye. His head whipped up, and from a few feet away, he met the dark eyes of one of the swordsman. His eyes were barely open, obviously not seeing what was in front of him. And yet his body still shifted a bit every so often with a shaky breath.

Qorchi had no idea which one he was. The two swordsman looked very similar, especially since he had only ever seen them with their helmets on, though the one by the tree had lost it at some point. Slowly, he made his way over and kneeled in front of the other soldier, strapping the spear to his back and moving a hand over the man's mouth.

His breaths were coming semi-consistently. Though his eyes had since fully closed. His entire torso had been smeared with blood, which made it hard to tell where exactly he was wounded in the dark. It had dripped down his left arm and matted the bottom of his hair to his neck. Even his pants were stained far down the front almost the entire way between his legs. 

It occured to him, that it was almost a miracle the man had even made it until now. Surely he had lost way too much blood to keep going for much longer. But they could absolutely not stay here. 

"I'm going to pick you up." Qorchi says, even though he knows the other man won't respond. He kneels with his back facing the other man, takes the spear back out of the harness and sets it beside him before as gently as he can, pushing the man's torso so that he rests against Qorchi's back. Slowly, he stands up keeping his back straight and parallel to the ground until the other man is lifted enough that he can grab hold of his legs. 

Finally, he takes the spear in his right hand and strightens up with a choked grunt. He was sure he looked ridiculous right now, carrying a man almost a foot taller than him and quite a bit heavier. His steps were clumsy, and he was bent over with the effort. Then he saw the first thing today to make his face light up. 

A Mongol horse was walking up through the white flowers, not Qorchi's. But one he remembered seeing amongst the group. A gray dappled mare with white mane and tail. 

He whispers meaningless calming words to her as he approaches, the horse stamping at the ground a bit, but otherwise was remarkably calm. Hardly reacted upon Qorchi very carefully lifting the other man into the saddle first before pausing and glancing back to the bodies ahead of him.

He took a brief moment to grab the sword nearest to him, sure that the man would want to have some sort of weapon, should he come to before climbing behind him, curling an arm around the man's abdomen to keep him from falling off the horse and taking the reins in the other.

As he began down the road in the opposite way as the hooftracks, he wondered why he was going to so much effort to try and save this man. He had never learned his name, and the only interaction he can remember was of the two brothers getting into an argument one day about something or other. Qorchi had not bothered to listen in.

He supposed it was just... he didn't want to be alone in a hostile territory. Not only was it disheartening, but it was also a recipe for immediate death. But at the same time, he was now held back by an 80 kg burden. But he could not just be rid of him. He'd already allowed one other to die today. 

Eventually, the path way split. One was larger, more worn. The other was significantly smaller and almost grown over in a few places with various plants. The less likely they were to be found, the better. 

A few minutes into his turn, Qorchi realizes that this may have been the best decision he could have made, as just a bit off the path, half hidden by the trees sat an abandoned building. Obviously not cared for in several years, as moss had begun to grow up the sides of the building, and the door hinges were beginning to rust over. 

After removing the other man from the horse and placing him on the front porch, he hitched the horse to a tree just a few meters away. 

He opened the sliding door as quietly as he could, peering inside to find nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. There was one bedroom, a center room with a small hole cut through the floor to expose some dirt to build a fire in, and a small room off to the side that had shelves on each wall. Completely picked clean, of course. 

But he was satisfied that the place was well and fully deserted, so he once again carefully picked up the other man and transferred him into the bedroom. There was one of the Japanese's odd cushion rolls they used to sleep on in the corner, and so he set that up along the far corner, next to another, smaller one of the holes in the floor. Even went so far as to strip his armor and fold his coat beneath him.

He knew he had to go back out. Hunt something or other. Provide him a means of dressing the man's wounds, as well as food. Two arrows would be more than enough. 

"I'll be back." He says to his motionless companion.

Exiting the building, he considered taking the horse, but decided against it. Her heavy body would likely just scare away whatever it is he would be hunting. 

He had no idea what he would find while here. He had only been deployed to Japan about two months ago, and had yet to take part in a hunt. There were more senior or savant warriors that were much quicker chosen for such a task. Qorchi's duties very much consisted of assisting in raids and guard duty. 

He had seen bears wandering about once or twice. They were smaller, darker. Had a little white patch on their chests that he had never seen in the much larger brown bears of Mongolia.

But that was not what he was looking for today. Some kind of herbivore. In Mongolia, they mostly used cow stomachs to dress wounds. He was certain he would not find those here, but they must have something similar enough.

In fact, there were tracks in some mud that looked very hoof like. He was uncertain, as the mud had begun to fill them in, it could be horses. But Qorchi had eaten horses before during a brief famine as a child. He figured the situation he was in would merit doing so again.

So he followed it, through a brief stint of trees and into a small patch of grass and flowers before spotting the thing sniffing the foliage at the beginning of where the forest resumed. It was... something different. Looked a bit like reindeer, but smaller and sleeker. Would likely serve his purposes well enough, though. 

The thing glanced around before lowering it's head to nibble at the grass. Qorchi quietly drew his bow and crept to the crest of the hill to insure his aim was true. Drew the arrow back, and aimed so that the tip of the arrow aligned with the haunch of the creature. Despite his purpose of hunting this creature to be for medicine, he was still going to eat it. And so he had to disable the creature.

His arrow flew with a whistle, pushing it's way into the thing's thigh and back out through it's stomach. The thing let out a terrified bay, and fell to the ground, scrabbling and looking over it's shoulder. But just as it found it's feet on the ground beneath it, Qorchi pushed the thing back to the ground, unsheathing his skinning knife and quickly stabbing into the thing's stomach. Searching with the tip for a moment for the break between the thing's ribs and slashing upward and moving his left arm out of the way of a bite the creature attempted to deliver before letting it's head fall to the ground, panting hard and heavy, eyes looking out desperately to the treeline so tauntingly close to it.

The Mongol dug his hand into the creature's chest, finding it's heart with shockingly little trouble for not knowing even what he was putting his arm in and squeezing with all his might. The thing's struggles almost instantly seized as blood poured out of it's prone body, flooding the land beneath it. 

Qorchi sat back with a sigh and rubbed his blood soaked hand on his pants. This tradition of Mongol hunting was not his favorite, but a tradition and a respect nonetheless. He took a piece of rope from his waist, as he always made sure to carry, and tied the thing's four legs together before hauling it onto his shoulder with a grunt. His back was already feeling the consequences of lifting the other man, and he was abruptly endlessly grateful that he had come across the horse.

It took him half as long to retrace his steps now that he wasn't looking for tracks on the ground, and he was very quickly back at the house. He hadn't even had to go more than a half of a kilometer. 

He made sure to drop the creature behind the house, so as not to upset the horse in front, and set about peeling off it's hide. That was a simple enough task, did not change from animal to animal. He just had to slip the knife between the skin and the muscle. A few cuts and it would come right off. 

An hour or so later, and he had taken what usable meat he could find off of the creature, leaving not much more than bones and the things head, then moved to the intestines. Cut a long slit into the things stomach and long intestines to flatten them out into one long and oddly shaped strip. 

He was glad that he had stopped back here, in retrospect as he had noticed that behind the house was a small pile of firewood. Placed that along with the stomach and what meat he had cut off into the pelt to carry inside.

He was unsure what he was going to do with the pelt in the long run. Just use it to store the meat on top of for now he supposed, so that they didn't pick up the years of filth atop the shelves in this house.

It came to little to no shock that the other man had not moved whatsoever during his absence. Still leaned against the wall, and still thankfully breathing. Qorchi set the pelt next to him and took out the firewood, placing 3 logs next to the hole in the floor, and 2 into it. He carried flint and steel in his pocket,and was well versed in making a fire, but still did not trust himself to make it with nothing but logs. He scanned the room for some kind of kindling, finding nothing but a few pairs of old clothing from the previous occupants which Qorchi felt would come more in handy unburnt.

He had heard of a technique once, though never practiced it himself. Although he supposed he had no choice now. so he took out his skinning knife once again, rubbing the blood on it off onto his pants which were now more red than tan. And started scraping it across the grain on the wood, peeling up soft and thin bits of timber. There was no reason this would not work, really. Most kindling was nothing more than soft and dry plants or wood. 

Upon accumulating a small fists worth, Qorchi retrieved his flint and steel and struck them together just a few centimeters from the wood scrapings. It took a few strikes for the sparks to start consistently flying off of the rocks, and several more before the kindling caught fire. He picked up the log it sat upon, and blew softly onto the flame for a few moments until the fire had well spread to the log beneath and the heat became nigh unbearable. 

The log was returned to the pit, and Qorchi to the other man placed on the opposite wall near the fire. In the new light, the Mongol peeled the broken and sticky armor off of his fellow soldier, quickly followed by his ruined shirt before considering the wound in front of him. It was... not as bad as he had feared, but certainly not something to be celebrated still. 

The other man's arm was hanging limply, and Qorchi could quite well see bone within the wound. But as it stretched from his left shoulder to his right hip, the wound became shallower and cleaner. Nothing but a bright red line at the very end. It was alarmingly deep along a bit of the man's chest, but the most important thing was that his intestines had not been gouged. Everything remained where it should. And so Qorchi was suddenly much more confident that his companion could survive.

The wounds were dressed with the creature he had hunted's stomach and intestines. He was uncertain of the reason for doing so as he had never himself studied medicine, but he was sure the men who did and decided this was a good practice had much reason for doing so. 

Either way, there was little more he could do now. 

He took a moment to stab a slab of meat onto the spear and lean it over the fire before walking the remaining meat and pelt into the room with the shelves and returning to the room to sit by the fire.

Outside a soft chirping permeated the air, just as a question seemed to permeate all of Qorchi's thoughts. What would he do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made sure to do some more research into Mongol traditions from the time. (For one, found out that Mongolian is only the language, and Mongols are the people lol) But yeah, they really did have a thing where they dressed wounds in cow stomachs. And a rule where if you were going to eat an animal after hunting it, you had to kill it by squeezing it's heart in your hand. Neato I guess.
> 
> Some of the rules are actually kind of progressive for their time though, I'd recommend searching up the Yassa, it's pretty interesting.


End file.
